Semantic tags for collaboration in construction formalized within a social network framework

Abstract: As construction projects require tracking an ever-increasing number of parameters to operate with suppliers, vendors, and the entire organization of a construction firm, particularly in exchanging, sharing, and integrating information, a semantically rich form to represent information is required. Semantic tags for interoperable construction workflows represent a novel approach to support the exchanging, sharing, and integrating of information. This approach proposes a semantic main form of representation of construction concepts to assist in the communication between actors. The proposed approach is based on the notion of the social network framework. The assumption is that construction actorsí relationships in communicating information can be expressed by patterns of relationships defined in a social network structure. Semantic tags leverage the communication of information within the dynamic social network grid by employing a concept-description that contains metadata. The purpose is to semantically enrich the product or project data. It is expected that the inclusion of additional semantics will overcome inefficiencies within interoperability.